Chapter 101 Regarding the Young Demon Hunter Named Claude

Actually, Hao Ren had an even bigger question regarding that young demon hunter named Claude:

Why would he, a servant and messenger of the First Saint, be on the battlefield?

Claude had been captured by an orc shaman, who had followed the Mad King Izaks since the early days of his rebellion—loyal and powerful. Izaks summoned the old shaman to his side to inquire about the situation at the front lines, and also asked about the matter of "Claude." The old orc had a deep impression of the young warrior he had captured: "He charged into battle with the others, fighting like a true warrior. At first, we didn't notice anything different about him from the other demon hunters until several powerful paladins were severely wounded by him one after another. Then we realized that he might be a commander."

Izaks frowned. "You're saying he was charging at the front lines like a common soldier? Did he have any extra guards or followers with him at the time?"

"No," the old orc shook his head, his shamanistic trinkets jingling, "If his features were more obvious, we would have noticed him from the start."

"Hmm… In any case, you've captured a very important fellow; you should be commended," Izaks waved his hand, dismissing the old orc, then turned to look at the others. "What do you think?"

"A guard of the highest leader running to the battlefield to charge into battle—it doesn't sound like a well-thought-out plan," Hao Ren clicked his tongue. "Tsk, what do you think those saints are up to?"

"Currently, the legion's front lines have advanced to the boundary of the Spirit World Clock Tower," Lanina said, looking at the suspended sand table in the center of the room. The palace models floating in mid-air were mostly marked with the demon king's legion, falling into the legion's control as if being swallowed by shadows from bottom to top. Now, the only remaining strongholds of the Order were a few palaces in the "upper" reaches of Corvus, and that strange Spirit World Clock Tower. And the place where Hao Ren and the others were now was located on the front lines, the location where Claude had been captured being a floating plaza nearby—the battle there had just ended ten minutes ago. "The Elder Council has few soldiers left at their disposal. Their desperate resistance in this situation has little strategic value and is basically a mess. Claude running out is probably just trying to die heroically."

"Perhaps…" Hao Ren was noncommittal about Lanina's statement. Although the Elder Council seemed doomed from the perspective of the situation, it still seemed quite suspicious to him that the First Saint's servant would abandon his master and run out to charge into battle simply because the battle situation was hopeless. "What's the situation with the Spirit World Clock Tower?"

"There's no change. It's still shrouded in a layer of shadow, and since this morning, no one has been seen coming out of that tower," Lanina's voice was somewhat puzzled. "Now we can't see any connection between it and the outside world, and because of the defensive network, scouts can't get too close."

Izaks and Hao Ren exchanged a glance and nodded in a deep voice: "Then continue attacking the surrounding energy nodes."

Under the demon king's command, the allied forces, whose morale had soared to its peak, launched an unprecedented final offensive against the last line of defense of the Elder Council.

The remaining forces of the Elder Council had all gathered around the Spirit World Clock Tower. Although their condition was a bit strange, they were still worthy of their reputation as elites in battle. Facing the fierce attack of the demon king's legion, the Order's demon hunters put up an extremely tenacious resistance. Elder-level and master-level demon hunters brought no small trouble to Izaks's subordinates, who had to pay several times their strength to maintain their advantage in suppressing the last few palaces and energy nodes.

But in any case, the battle situation was set. The resistance of the Order's demon hunters was only delaying the time of complete defeat.

As the main force rushed towards the last Order stronghold, Hao Ren and Bai Huo led a small elite team and came to a place extremely close to the Spirit World Clock Tower through a secret route that had just been opened.

The place where everyone landed was a rocky platform floating in the void. The platform was empty, with no palaces or high walls. Only the broken and messy exquisite stone bricks on the ground showed that this might be the remains of a plaza. All the relics of Corvus had independent gravity of unknown origin, but the gravity of this platform was very weak and was obviously inclined towards the direction of the Spirit World Clock Tower. When standing on the platform, there was always a feeling of falling and sliding into the void.

Hao Ren stood on the edge of the platform, casually took out a graviton bomb from his dimensional pocket, and threw it hard into the distance.

After escaping the gravity restraint of the platform, the graviton bomb flew in a straight line towards the distant darkness, but before it could explode, it suddenly disappeared out of thin air. Upon closer inspection, it could be seen that it did not really "disappear," but rather seemed to have hit something more than a hundred meters away from the platform. It was instantly torn apart and cut into countless fragments, which were then torn apart again, until they were pulverized to the point where they could not be distinguished by the naked eye before being swallowed by the darkness.

This was one of the layers of defensive networks in the Corvus space.

The area around the Spirit World Clock Tower seemed empty, and the various floating temples seemed unobstructed, but in fact, these layers of temples and energy nodes were intertwined, with dozens or hundreds of layers of strange spatial turbulence between them. If one rashly broke into the darkness, even the most powerful demon hunters would be silently torn to pieces.

It was not until the demon king's allied forces destroyed 70% of the energy node connections in Corvus that these invisible and distorted space defense systems finally showed some loopholes, allowing Hao Ren and his party to approach so close to the Spirit World Clock Tower.

And now, the legion was attacking the last energy node on the Order's defense line. Hao Ren and the others were waiting for the moment when these defense systems would be shut down.

"From here, you can already see the Spirit World Clock Tower. That's it." Master Tutanin stood beside Hao Ren, pointing to a shadow in the distant darkness.

Hao Ren looked up and saw a strange tower in the gaps between the starlight. It was as strange as the model on the sand table, with a completely irregular shape and structure, as if a child had randomly pieced it together with building blocks. Various geometric bodies were stacked together to form the shape of the tower. This tower floated silently in the depths of the darkness, with only a few lights on the tower, and other structures almost integrated into the shadows, gloomy and silent, like an abandoned ruin.

"No movement at all?" Hao Ren was a little strange.

"We are also wondering, it's too quiet," Tutanin said slowly, "Usually there are always more lights around it, but now most of the lights are off, and there are no personnel guarding outside the tower. I don't know what the saints are doing inside."

"According to Lanina's report, this state of the Spirit World Clock Tower has lasted for nearly a day," Izaks said in a deep voice, "Now the demon hunters on the Order's defense line are almost fighting on their own. Although their resistance is very fierce, it is obvious that they lack unified command. Thinking of the Claude we captured before, I suspect something happened inside the Clock Tower."

Hao Ren looked back. Because the Nangong family of four lacked combat power, they stayed behind to take care of the wounded. Vivian, Izaks and his daughter, and Lily came here with him. In addition, Bai Huo and Tutanin also brought dozens of demon hunter masters. This small team had less than a hundred people in total, but they were the group with the highest combat power at the moment. When the defenses outside the Spirit World Clock Tower were lifted, this team would be the first to rush in to open a gap.

After seeing the strange state of the Spirit World Clock Tower, there was more worry on the faces of those demon hunter masters. Although no one said anything, the look of worry was quite obvious. Obviously, even though they had broken with the Elder Council, they were still worried about the situation of the "Holy Land."

Izaks silently folded his arms in front of his chest, looking at another direction in the depths of the darkness. There was a tower that floated independently in the void, like a torch. Flashes of fire could be seen constantly exploding around the tower. Obviously, the fierce battle on the front lines was in full swing. He silently watched the flashes of light from the direction of the battlefield, sensed the state of his demon army, and calculated the timing of the action, suddenly muttering softly: "Almost."

Almost at the same time as he finished speaking, a strong light suddenly erupted above the torch-like energy node. The defense of the node itself was overloaded, and it detonated the runes used for control, declaring the collapse of the last line of defense of the Order's demon hunters.

The ancient defense system of Corvus itself was indestructible, but they were activated by a series of control devices set up by the demon hunters in the later period. When those rune stones exploded, the ancient defenses would immediately shut down. Hao Ren saw that there seemed to be a water-like transparent thing twisting in the dark space around the Spirit World Clock Tower, and then he knew that the time had come: "Let's go!"

The elite assault team quickly left the platform and flew silently towards the distant Spirit World Clock Tower. They did not encounter any obstacles and soon arrived in front of the strange tower.

However, after seeing the condition of the Spirit World Clock Tower up close, Hao Ren couldn't help but be stunned: "Is this… normal?"

The Spirit World Clock Tower was actually in a state of being eroded by darkness!